1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a machine that includes barrel containers which contain works to be processed together with the abrasive media that may include any required compound solution, in which the barrel containers are driven for both axial and orbital rotations with high speeds so that the works therein can be subjected to the surface finishing, deburring, or other surface treating processes. More specifically, the present invention makes all the machine operations completely automatic, including the preliminary operation and the final operation.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There is a conventional work finishing machine that includes high-speed rotating barrel containers, which is fully automatic but is primarily designed for the wet-type finishing operation. The dry-type finishing machine has not yet been developed. The conventional machine includes means that permits mounting or demounting of a barrel container, which usually requires the human operator's intervention. All operations including the barrel container mounting or demounting are cyclic, but are not automatic from one cycle to another. That is, the operation is not completely unmanned or unattended.
In order to safisfy the requirements for the total system that includes a plurality of individual work finishing units of the kind mentioned above and permits the use of abrasive media for the dry-type work finishing as well as for the wet-type work finishing, whereby all the operations can be performed under the completely unmanned or unattended environment, it is observed that there are many problems yet to be solved.
One problem occurs when a barrel container is to be mounted or demounted. Specifically, the problem is how to mount or demount a barrel container without the operator intervention and how to lock it on the machine. Other problems include how to reactivate the used abrasive media in order to retain its abrading capability, how to keep the abrasive media warm to retain its abrading capability, how to transport individual barrel containers into or out of the system and how to place works into those barrel containers, and a controller required to run the total system with high efficiency.